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Of all the commercial motor vehicles inspected during Brake Safety Week this past September, 14.1% were found to have “critical brake violations.”. That means almost 1 out of every 7 CMVs that were inspected were placed out of service.

Brake Safety Week is part of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s “Operation Airbrake” program. It is conducted in partnership with the FMCSA here in the U.S. and the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators in Canada. This year it ran from September 16th-22nd.

Enforcement officers conducted 35,080 inspections on CMVs checking specifically for brake violations. During that time, 4,955 CMVs were placed out of service because of “critical brake violations.”

According to the CVSA, the goal of Brake Safety Week is not only enforcement, but also to inspire drivers and carriers to do brake maintenance checks and educate them on how and why that’s necessary.

Brake safety gets its own special enforcement blitz because brake violations feature so prominently in OOS violations during the rest of the year. According to the FMCSA, there were 1,045,335 brake related violations cited during inspections in fiscal year 2018 alone. During the CVSA’s International Roadcheck 2018 enforcement blitz, brake violations were the top cause of vehicle OOS violations.

“Whether you’re driving a commercial motor vehicle or inspecting one, we all know the importance of properly functioning brakes,” said CVSA President Lt. Scott Carnegie with the Mississippi Highway Patrol. “It is essential that we – law enforcement, drivers and motor carriers – do all that we can through prevention, education, outreach and action to ensure only the safest commercial motor vehicles are being operated by professional drivers on our roadways.”

Maybe they should also put these trucks out of service that are running these fog light on blinding all the rest of us drivers. It is time that we all shut the fog lamps off unless it is foggy out you are causing a lot of problems for other drivers they’re too bright and are not needed in non fog conditions

Completely agree! Turn off the damn fog lights and the high beams. We’re professional drivers, if you have to have your high beams on while on interstate… there’s a problem; either replace your plastic headlight lens, buff out the haze that won’t let the light pass through correctly or learn how to aim your headlights. Maybe do all the above but do something besides blind everyone else.

That is not a truck failure but a driver failure. Take a look around you. See the new drivers.? They are replacing the older pros that are leaving the industry in droves. the new drivers ( steering wheel holders) leave a lot to be desired as far as the professional goes.They come out of school thinking they know it all and do not listen nor pay attention to their surroundings. We all get punished for the actions or more importantly the inaction of the newbie.When they climbed in that truck that switch was in that position and it stays in that position. To them, they think it looks cool..

I was a newbie at one time. 1961 to be precise. Drove from NJ, to St. Louise an a Diamond/Rio COE that had nothing but a steering wheel and 5/4 fuller. Gasoline farm tractor engine, no heater, driver’s side wiper only and a piece of cardboard in the passenger side window. I think I topped out at 48 mph a couple of times. Some in here will remember the old fender mounted ten candle power head light that bounced all over the place. I took the load or be fired. I took the load because it was my first road trip and I was willing to hit the highway in a piece of ten wheel garbage.

Hey Fog light guy….start a forum or something. Getting tired of hearing about fog lights in every article. FYI I run mine because it gives me better side lighting and has saved me a few times in non foggy conditions since some people think it’s cool to walk or bike along a highway at night with narrow shoulders wering dark clothing .

“Automatics don’t need to be inspected” don’t know how often I have heard that one. If you are a steering wheel holder feel free to pay large fines and possibly kill yourself. If you are a professional driver inspect your brakes, lining and pushrod travel at least every week. If you are light on the brakes do 3 heavy brake applications every few days to force the slacks to ratchet and adjust. I have met guys on the road 5-8 years that didn’t know that.

Exactly. It most likely not random but looking/profiling for trucks that possibly could be in violation. Example Inspector at scale looks at 10 trucks and one of those is suspect and inspected. Then as claimed 1 of 7 of those are in violation. So that now makes 1 in 70 a reality. The ratio of violations to trucks on the road is probably lower.

Safety is a big issue they don’t teach the E-drivers how to maintain there
brake slack or how to inspect the shoes they think the self adjusters will
automatically take care of that, nobody wants to crawl under their truck
and manually adjust each hub, I not a mechanic I don’t get paid for that
and I agree unfortunately it’s your responsibility to make sure it’s done
your the one who gets wrote up or ticketed, do what I do once a month
get em adjusted or looked at even if your company doesn’t like it they
have no choice it’s better than getting put out of service or worse yet a
complete failure when needed like going down a 7% grade @ 80.000 lbs

Pc you are one of the dumb ones. Fog lamps are for safety during bad weather not for extra lighting. Adjust your lamps so they show better. Maybe just get off the road at night so you can hold your wheel and look cool with your lamps.

You know guys, I don’t think these blitzes are such a bad thing. I have been asked to hooked up to trailers that had zero brake pad left, the pots were no longer adjustable or the tires were smoother than a balloon’s surface. I was even ordered to pull a trailer from Chicago to St Paul Mn. that had only 6 wheels. I have been fired three times for refusing to get into a truck or trailer that had next to zero braking power. Some companies just don’t give a rat’s behind about the consequences if an accident happens. The driver is always at fault; rarely the company.

Many owner/ops are pretty much forced to cut corners to make payments on their tractors. It’s usually the brakes that are skimmed on first. When pulling 60,000 – 70,000 lbs on a highway at 60 mph, it’s either a suicide wish or desperation that pushes a driver to take the chance with faulty brakes. Even an expert on a tranny or a phase Jake, does not cut it.

I think the numbers are exaggerated to make awareness the priority. When’s the last time you heard brake checks being done in a truck stop? Not a bad idea to check and make sure your brakes are working. When you get pulled over by DOT, they will let you know.
For the rookie drivers… do your brake checks every day and get out and look as often as possible. Your career depends on it.

I’d think they would learn proper brake requirements while they were in school to become well educated and informed transportation specialists.. Oh wait, the other story was about buying licenses and not learning anything wasn’t it..

When I drove for Harold Ives in the part of the new hire orientation process was to go over to the shop,get with the shop foreman who was licensed or whatever to certify drivers on brake adjustments and learn how to inspect brakes and the propped procedure for adjusting them. When you were done you received a card to keep in your wallet and present at the scales or wherever in the event that your brakes were out of adjustment,stating that you were actually certified to work on your brakes and adjust them yourself.if you couldn’t and had to call a mechanic to adjust them it came out of your check.I lost the card and it expired or something happened to it but the hour or so it took to actually teach me was priceless because it stuck with me more than some safety guy saying check your brakes and I can’t tell you how many “drivers” I’ve seen waiting for someone to show up and adjust theirs because they had been put OOS and had no idea what to do. I think a lot of drivers don’t inspect them because they don’t know what they’re looking for or what to do to fix it and wait for dot to say something.

Lets see now, Auto transmission, Auto Brakes? Do the children out here today know what they are supposed to check in a pre-trip ? I would bet none have ever seen the dirty underside of a truck.Do they even know how to adjust the brakes on the auto adjust slack adjuster? has any one of you even used an air gauge? When was the last time you gauged the steer tires? Yall keep blowing out those tires. BTW: did you see the guy that failed the inspection on YOUTUBE? Sorry, no comments allowed. You should have a bungie to check the trailer brakes, and a stick, yes a stick to check the tractor brakes. Jam it between the steering wheel and the brake pedal. But the biggest problem out here is the LAZY driver. Blow a tire and see what happens. See the truck head on to the Big Dog in New Mexico? Most likely foot on the dash, listening to his toons, or watch the movie on the tablet. enough I came out here when we still had WHITE KNIGHTS. What do I do now?